Pan jr. - Any information?

[stavanger]

Hi Thomas,

 

You're right, the clips look similar, but not the pens. Some of yours seem to be made of similar colored materials.

Are your Pans made in Germany? And, your pens seem to be pistonfillers, am I right? None of mine are, all

buttonfillers. One suspects that the Pan brand was a made-to-order company. I believe the Norwegian pruduction

was limited to assembling imported parts and tuning the nibs.

 

Best regards,

 

Ove

 

Ps: let me know if you'd be interested in trading one of your piston fillers for one of my buttonfillers.

Edited October 14, 2013 by stavanger

[Kaweco]

Hello Ove

Yes, all pens are piston fillers and come from Germany. PAN was founded by Zahn, Leser & Co. "Oberrheinische Füllfedergesellschaft" in Mannheim/ Germany. After WW2 they moved to Heidelberg/ Germany.

This is an additional pic of an early heart hole nib with the PAN emblem.

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab1/Thomasnr/PAN3.jpg

 

Does the clip of #6 carry another imprint/ the arrow clip?

quote<<I believe the Norwegian pruduction was limited to assembling imported parts and tuning the nibs.>> /quote

I don`t believe the stories of foreign nib tunings. The after market nib tuning is a practise of today and it is limited in tip grinding. After the middle slit has been cut it is not good to applicate an additional imprint because the pressure would destroy the whole architecture of the nib.

The pattern of the stacked thin black and broarder blue celluloid is not scarce and surely not limited to Pan fountain pens.

Alas, these pens are not available because they belong to a documentation stock about the fountainpenindustries in Heidelberg/ Germany

Kind Regards, Thomas

 

[Kaweco]

Hello Ove

Can you make a close up pic of nib and clip, possibly the maker can be identified

Thank you and Kind Regards

Thomas

[stavanger]

Hello again Thomas,

 

I'll try to make a couple of close-ups and publish in a day or two.

All I meant by "nib tuning" was testing for smoothness, and polishing/adjusting

the tines if necessary. This was a part of the production - quality control, as

told to a reporter which tried to document this pen production.

 

While I struggle with the colse-ups, please take a look at this scan from a

museum in Oslo.

 

 

 

 

Best regards,

 

Ove

Edited October 16, 2013 by stavanger

[OakIris]

Nice looking pens, I think. Probably not too easy to find here across the pond, though.

 

I am a bit confused, however. Was this a German pen manufacturer or a Norwegian pen manufacturer? Were there two separate companies using the same name - or was there a parent company called PAN/Pan that made pens in both Germany and Norway, just as Parker used to manufacture pens in the USA, Canada and England?

 

Holly

[stavanger]

Hello Ove

Can you make a close up pic of nib and clip, possibly the maker can be identified

Thank you and Kind Regards

Thomas

Hello Thomas,

 

Her we go, pictures of clip and nib. The nibs on all my Pans are made in the same shape as this one.

Some variation in nib imprint.

 

Best regards,

 

Ove

[stavanger]

Nice looking pens, I think. Probably not too easy to find here across the pond, though.

 

I am a bit confused, however. Was this a German pen manufacturer or a Norwegian pen manufacturer? Were there two separate companies using the same name - or was there a parent company called PAN/Pan that made pens in both Germany and Norway, just as Parker used to manufacture pens in the USA, Canada and England?

 

Holly

 

Hi Holly,

 

Very little is known about these "Norwegian" pens. I can't really tell you if they are made to order in Germany for the Norwegian market,

whether if it's the same brand as the the German company, or two production lines using the same brand name. I know some pens were sold

under the Pan name in Holland as well. I have ont seen any of these, but they are described in the Fountain pens of the world book.

 

Best,

 

Ove

[OakIris]

Thank you, Ove. In post #15, Jernkalle definitively states that the company was Norwegian and founded in 1950, then Kaweco states definitively in post #22 that the company was founded in Manneheim, Germany some time prior to WWII, thus my confusion. Almost sounds as if the company started in Germany and then branched out to Norway (and Holland??)

 

We may never know exactly. Oh well! I do indeed like the way they look and it seems they have withstood the test of time, thus they must have been well made by whomever it is that made them.

 

There is no mention about how they write, however. So how do they write? Nicely enough so that If we luck out and find one of these pens out in the wild, we should snap them up??

 

Holly

Edited October 17, 2013 by OakIris

[Kaweco]

Hello Ove

Thank you very much for the pics. The great Pan chrystall glass cupboard from the Oslo Museum is really shocking! I wish I had such a basis in a museum in my hometown to present my collection to the public. Thanks for the close ups. It clarfies a little bit more. Notwithstanding the nib imprint is Norwegian languaged, the nib`s origin seems to be Bock in Heidelberg/ Germany.

I have some original imprint stamps.

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab1/Thomasnr/0deba361-0b96-438d-88a7-6edd6497e84b_zpsd1ded077.jpg

Is it possible to contact the Oslo Museum? I am really curious about the connection of the PAN/Pan corporations

Thank you and Kind Regards

Thomas

[stavanger]

Thank you, Ove. In post #15, Jernkalle definitively states that the company was Norwegian and founded in 1950, then Kaweco states definitively in post #22 that the company was founded in Manneheim, Germany some time prior to WWII, thus my confusion. Almost sounds as if the company started in Germany and then branched out to Norway (and Holland??)

 

We may never know exactly. Oh well! I do indeed like the way they look and it seems they have withstood the test of time, thus they must have been well made by whomever it is that made them.

 

There is no mention about how they write, however. So how do they write? Nicely enough so that If we luck out and find one of these pens out in the wild, we should snap them up??

 

Holly

Holly, I'd say the chances of finding one - at least the Norwegian ones - are very slim. I haven't spotted one for years.

They are nice writers, some may need a bit of nib tweaking. The build quality is excellent - I have never seen one that is cracked.

The nibs are obviously made by Bock.

In case you are really interested, I'm sure we could make up a trade for one of mine.

 

Ove

[stavanger]

Hello Ove

Thank you very much for the pics. The great Pan chrystall glass cupboard from the Oslo Museum is really shocking! I wish I had such a basis in a museum in my hometown to present my collection to the public. Thanks for the close ups. It clarfies a little bit more. Notwithstanding the nib imprint is Norwegian languaged, the nib`s origin seems to be Bock in Heidelberg/ Germany.

I have some original imprint stamps.

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab1/Thomasnr/0deba361-0b96-438d-88a7-6edd6497e84b_zpsd1ded077.jpg

Is it possible to contact the Oslo Museum? I am really curious about the connection of the PAN/Pan corporations

Thank you and Kind Regards

Thomas

 

Hello Thomas,

 

Thank you for providing me with new - to me - information. The imprint on the nibs share the same symbol at least some

of them, and the clip on my number 6 is the same as the one on several of your German pens. The shapes differ, though,

and that makes me think that the Norwegian onees are made to order - with their own design. The ones on my picture are

typical of the Pans I have seen. There are a couple of other designs, one is a typical early Duofold Sr. knockoff, and the other

is the Pan Jr. that started this tread.

 

I'm afraid I may have mislead you with my reference to the Oslo Museum. As far as I am aware, it is the picture of the glass cupboard

that is, or was, exibited, not the cupboard itself. At least this is what I believe. I haven't visited this museum myself, so I could well be

mistaken. I live in the west of Norway, far from the capitol.

 

I've included the contact iinfo to the museum, in case you would like to approach them directly.

 

http://www.oslomuseum.no/19-om-oslo-museum/126-what-is-oslo-museum

 

I have enjoyed this exchange of Pan information, Pans were amongst my first pens.

Best of luck with your documentation project.

 

Best,

 

Ove

[OakIris]

Holly, I'd say the chances of finding one - at least the Norwegian ones - are very slim. I haven't spotted one for years.

They are nice writers, some may need a bit of nib tweaking. The build quality is excellent - I have never seen one that is cracked.

The nibs are obviously made by Bock.

In case you are really interested, I'm sure we could make up a trade for one of mine.

 

Ove

 

Good to hear that they write nicely.

 

I might well consider a trade in the future, though I have no idea what I might have that you might want (lol - or that I might want to trade, for that matter) I will certainly keep this in mind, though!

 

Holly

[stavanger]

 

Good to hear that they write nicely.

 

I might well consider a trade in the future, though I have no idea what I might have that you might want (lol - or that I might want to trade, for that matter) I will certainly keep this in mind, though!

 

Holly

 

Just a thought. I used to to quite a bit of pen trading, and I like the thought of passing on

surplus pens for something else. Haven't got a clue as to value of these Pans of mine.

The offer stands, if you should ever descide to to ahead with a trade.

 

Enjoy your weekend,

 

Ove

[Kaweco]

Hello Ove

Thank you for the link and again for the pics. I have learned a lot and did not expect before that there was a partner corporation of Pan Germany in Norway. I did not know the language of the nib stamp and now I can include another client to the ca.120 identified Bock customers. Don`t talk of "knock offs", each decade had a feel of styles and fashion. Sometimes small and unknown brands came out with a new design idea which became main stream.

Best Wishes To Stavanger

Kind Regards

Thomas

[amirazar79]

I've bought this pen from a charity in Hamar city of Norway for about two years ago. I was wandering where is made her until I read this forum. Sorry for low-quality photos. On the body it reads Pan-FOPRMPOINT and on the nib is a graving of Iridium Point & 6.

[stavanger]

NIce find. Any mention of "Norway" anywhere? It seems be a piston filler, which is interesting.

I recently found a solid color red, which also is a piston filler. As I have written earlier, my other

Pan pens are all button fillers, while the German ones often come with a piston filler. I don't know

about the ones apparantly made in Holland, I have never seen one. Is the piston on your pen working?

[wimg]

The ones in Holland (Netherlands) were likely assembled in the Netherlands only, probably from German manufactured parts, and the brand itself carried by a very small manufacturer - there used to be very many of them in the late 1940's and 1950s.

 

Warm regards, Wim